I was young.

Once…

And now, perhaps not so much.

A colleague of mine, who we’ll just call “A. Ettinger,” is one of the younger agents in the business and with our brokerage, and we got to chatting the other day.

Actually, I’m going to call her “Anya E.”  just because that’s a little more anonymous, but in any event, we were discussing this phenomenon of “shared accommodations” and how it’s no longer a running joke in the city.

Anya has been sharing her thoughts on shared accommodations on this thing called “Tik Tok,” which apparently has nothing to do with clocks, and she’s quite active on there too: https://www.tiktok.com/@aserealty

Yeah, well, she’ll never know what it was like on ICQ back in the day and how your heart skipped a beat when you heard that “uh-oh” when a message was received.  Y’all know what I’m talking about.

And those young folks, among whom youth is wasted, will never know the thrill of downloading MP3’s on Scour before “Napster” was even invented.  Some of you may be old enough to remember Kazaa, Limewire, and Frostwire, but you’ll never know the glory of waiting 47 minutes to download a single song in MP3 form on a 14.4kb modem…

Anyway, I have Anya to thank for the following photos and listings because she put this up on her Tikkity-Talk or whatever the hell it’s called, and it had something like nine million views.

“Shared accommodations” are everywhere now and it’s a sign of just how bad our housing crisis is getting.

It’s one thing to see 18 offers on a property listed for sale (although not this fall…), and it’s another thing to see 20% appreciation in the average home price within four months (as has happened twice in the last seven years), but it’s another thing to see what’s become of the rental market.

I’ve written many stories on the rental market so far in 2023.  Here are a select few:

March 24th, 2023: “Are We In A Rental Housing Crisis?”

May 10th, 2023: “Giving All Landlords A Bad Name”

May 12th, 2023: “Giving All Tenants A Bad Name”

September 18th, 2023: “Landlords & Tenants: The Modern-Day Hatfields & McCoys”

But today’s blog is going to explore something we’ve never delved into before.

What is a shared accommodation?

Well, at the most basic level, it’s having a roommate.  We’ve all been there before.  Except, not all of “us,” since the thought of sleeping in a 12 x 8 room on a single bed, next to another guy in his single bed, who I just met, for an entire year, scared me into living off-campus alone at the tender age of 18, but I digress…

Now, at the more complicated level, a “shared accommodation” in Toronto has spawned into something else.

It’s turned into something I could never imagine, like what you’re about to read in this ad…

Alright, so first and foremost, I don’t understand the emojis.  Are those spools of yarn next to the “background,” and what’s with the straw huts next to “QUEEN SIZED BED?”

That aside, um, did you notice the part where this is an ad to share a bed with a stranger?

Damn.  Our housing market is tough.

Or perhaps this isn’t indicative of “the depths of despair in our market,” and rather represents “ingenuity and capitalism.”

Maybe it’s somewhere in between?

Here’s a photo of the bed in question, by the way:

I’ve slept in worse.

But $900 to share a bed with another person?

There are so many jokes running through my head but I’m trying to be sympathetic here.  It’s just odd, ya know?  Perhaps most new things seem that way?

The ad specifies “looking for a female,” so while I might think this means the existing occupant is a female, you never know.  It could be a guy looking to get weird.  I did have a friend who once put an ad on Craigslist offering massages in Trinity Bellwoods Park for $50/hour, only to specify “female only.”  Um, yeah, he and I aren’t that close anymore…

Up next we have a listing that’s not as odd as the bed-share, but equally as sad if it represents the current state of our rental market.

Here’s the ad posted online:

Shared room for rent.

Uh-huh.

Bunk beds.

Uh-huh.

I know what you’re thinking, and it’s okay.

I’m thinking the same thing…

Now, unlike the Step Brothers, the listing above isn’t for a shared bunk-bed.

That bunk bed belongs solely to he or she who possesses the $650 per month in rent.

The problem with the situation isn’t the bed itself.

The problem is with the room, or rather lack thereof.

Because in the very next photo, we zoom out and see where this bed is located:

It’s in the front foyer of this townhouse.

It’s in the entranceway.  It’s next to the front door.

It’s one of those townhouses that has a pseudo “den” at the front of the unit that you effectively pass through to get anywhere else in the house.

So if the tenant is sleeping and the owner or another tenant comes home, they have to pass by the tenant’s bed.

So odd.

Here’s an interesting one:

Interesting.

A 4-bedroom condo?

I didn’t know they make those!  There must be some sort of mistake!

Actually, it’s no mistake.  It’s somebody turning a two-bedroom condo into a faux 4-bedroom.

Here’s the first photo of the “bedroom” in the unit:

Looks a bit suspect.

But if we see the room from another angle, we realize what this actually is…

It’s the front hallway.

That’s the door on the left.

The bed is where the shoes, bicycle, and grocery bags usually find space.

Somebody has taken a 2-bedroom condo and turned it into a 4-bedroom condo by putting up cheap doors and sectioning off areas of the condo.

Why “live” in the living room if you can turn it into a bedroom and have somebody pay to sleep there, right?

Now, if we take a step back for a moment, we can remember that not everybody can, should, or deserves to live alone.

Whatever happened to roommates, right?

Rob Carrick, the long-time personal finance columnist from the Globe & Mail, wrote this last week:

“In 10 Years, Will Canada Be A Country Of Roommates?”

In the end of the piece, he asks:

High costs are the new normal in housing, and that means more people living with roommate.  Ten years from now, will only affluent singles be able to live the solo lifestyle?

But Rob is probably several years older than me and the experience that he described (attending university in Ottawa, probably in the 1990’s) isn’t what we’re talking about today.

Back in the day, you and three friends could pool your money and rent a four-bedroom house.

We all have those stories, both fond memories and awful nightmares we only re-live on occasion.

But what’s missing today, which was present back then, is choice.

We used to look around for roommates, then browse properties, then make a decision.

Today, the word in downtown Toronto is out – there’s no landlord that wants to rent to you and your other two 20-something buddies, even if you spend all your free time delivering food to the homeless, teaching art at an old folk’s home, and giving blood as you’re all universal donors.

It’s impossible for a “group of four buddies” to find a house in Toronto.  It shouldn’t be, but we all know that it is.

Some of the “why” can be found in the ads I’ve just shown you above where some property owners are renting their front hall for $900/month, or where others are so particular, choosey, or downright odd that they want to lease the right side of their bed!

Then, some of the “why” can be found in a post like this, which I share because it’s topical, and not because I like doing so…

Is this really where we are in Toronto in 2023?

People are renting out one-bedroom condos to five tenants?

Hopefully not “people” but rather “person,” although whether it’s five tenants, four, or even three, landlords like this are taking advantage of housing shortage.

The above post is rich with hearsay and speculation, but it’s clearly coming from somewhere.  And we already saw the example of the 2-bedroom condo being turned into a faux 4-bedroom, so it’s not that far-fetched to think that a property owner could be stashing four or five desperate Torontonians in a one-bedroom condo.

A bunk bed in the den?  Really?

Suddenly, I’m reminded of Cosmo Kramer tucking his newfound foreign friends to sleep in their drawers within a large dresser.

So what’s worse: bunk beds in the den of a 1-bedroom condo with three other roommates, or renting the left-half of a stranger’s bed?

Have your pick!